Photo Inspiration

I was tagged by Jean a while ago and finally got around to thinking about it today! The rules are...go to your 4th folder of pictures and pick the 4th picture, then write about it.

So the 4th photo in the 4th folder is this one:

The photo was taken on a trip to Santa Fe in the spring of 2006. My husband was attending a conference and I was wondering around town looking for the quilt store and trying not to worry about the kids (I hadn't been away from them much before that trip!) I found this unique store that sold doors and was quite taken by it. My 4th photo folder is full of other photos of the doors I saw, but you probably don't want to be bored with those! I can't really verbalize to this day why I was so captured by this place.

Here is my fabric representation that I made when I came back home. I still feel happy when I look at it and always try to find a place to hang it up especially in the spring.

And I also made these two little abstract door pieces for the Abstract Challenge Yahoo group just for fun. I haven't been active in that group for a while and hope to change that this year. I always think about the monthly theme and sometimes even make a sketch of my ideas and inspirations, but lately haven't taken the next step to translate into fabric.

Quilt Festival

What a nice surprise! I was surfing around on the Quilt Festival website and discovered a photo of one of my quilts. If you click here and find "The Gathering: Contemporary & Traditional Quilts", the blue/purple quilt on the right is mine! When I sign papers giving permission for my quilt images to be used for Quilt Festival, I am never sure where and when the images will show up! There it is!

Today I dropped off my quilts for the Arts Centre exhibit and couldn't remember which quilts I had promised to loan for this show. So I just picked a couple of my favorites and which ever ones jumped out of the cupboard, will be the ones at the show! Very logical methods that I use, eh?!?! Here is one for sure...

It is an abstract challenge piece called "Almost Van Gogh". I painted the background fabric using Setacolor paints, and then free motion machine stitched by machine and by hand, trying to create movement similar to Van Gogh's painting called Starry Night . Then I hand beaded the swirls and added a dove bead in the centre to represent Van Gogh's brother Theo, who loved and supported him emotionally and financially his whole life.

I better get a move on...I have to get supper on the table and then get ready to attend the Quilt Festival opening ceremonies! Come by tomorrow to read all about it!

Abstract quilt

It has been a busy week, and I was lucky enough to have some creativity time yesterday. I worked on my monthly abstract challenge (theme = orange) and forced myself to finish it today, even though it doesn't look anything like I had planned. My original sketch was a circle of triangle shapes, using the colours of the colour wheel, with the orange pulling out of the circle, all on a white background. When I went to my scraps, I couldn't find any fabrics to make this work. But I did find some black strips from Judy and some orange teardrop shapes from Julie (some guild members don't like to save scraps...can you believe it?!? so they share their scraps

...lucky me!). My philosophy is - if the scrap jumps out of the bag to be in the project, I find a way to fit it in! So I made up a new plan, cut the black strips with wavy cuts and ironed them to a fusible interfacing. It didn't stick very well, and I wondered if fusibles have a shelf life...a "best before" date? I free motion quilted little orange seed stitches over the wavy seam lines. Then I put the orange sections on and free motion quilted around the edges. I really wanted to quilt the orange sections but couldn't decide how to do that. Here are some quilting ideas I considered but couldn't decide which one, so I left it for now:I then finished it with a striped binding, and some orange beads in the centre. I try to do a little sewing, even if it is hand work or beading, every day. But I think I need to stop for a little while. I have split my thumb nail down the centre, on my needle holding hand, and I think it is from too much hand work...is there such a thing? When sewing on the orange beads it was really hurting. Anyone have advice on how to fix this problem? Maybe I should do some machine piecing this weekend and give my thumb a rest?

"Country"

I have just finished my monthly abstract miniature quilt. The theme of the month was "country" - not as in Canada, but country as in rural or countryside. The images/words that come to my mind when I think of country are: trees and earth, peaceful, calm, empty space, lonely...
I made some initial sketches...I always doodle about 6 design ideas to start and go from there. I got carried away with the house on the hill in the left sketch ...inspired by a card I had recently received. But then I didn't like all the detail and found myself wanting to make a swing set and a family, and became defocused from the theme.
This quilt turned out to be a little larger than postcard size and I should have sewn something stiffer (cardboard) on the back, but I like the backing fabric, so I left it. The base is my hand painted fabric overlaid with painted cheesecloth. The trees were made using one of my favorite techniques...scrap bits under Solvy. If you read my post on March 31st - click here -  there is a picture of my cupboard and my collection of tiny bits of fabric in jars (sitting on the bottom shelf), which I call "Quilter's Jelly"...I really do use these up! I am teaching another class on this in May, so I am thinking about more ways to use this method.
I like to quilt everything to death, and I had a difficult time resisting the desire to heavily machine quilt my country. I knew that this theme required minimal quilting, so I left it hanging on my design wall for a couple of weeks, while the quilt and I debated the issue! Yes...we debated...out loud! Well, I guess I was talking out loud, but the quilt talked very quietly! That's why I have to stay in the basement, so noone knows how crazy I am and that I talk to my quilts!! Here is one of my sketches on the right working out the issues of how many trees and how much quilting.
I made a few attempts to quilt some different things in the blank space, but it just made the quilt seem busy and it started looking too active and frenetic...more "city-like". So I ripped those stitches out. Then I couched a course, brown, twine-looking fibre around the outside edges.
Again, I let it sit for a while, asking it...""are you sure that's all you want"??
I am still resisting the desire to add beads and more quilting.
It looks so plain, so empty, so calm. Just like the country.
Mission accomplished...walk away!
Now April has arrived and I have a different topic to divert my attention, so luckily for this country mini, I will call it "finished" and move on. The new topic is "orange" and I have lots of orange beads!

Abstract Mini

This week I have been working (in tiny blocks of time) on my next abstract mini quilt. It is not getting along with me very well, and I am fighting with my ideas on the theme versus my love of quilting a piece to death! I'll give more details when it's finished.
But in the meantime, here is the one I made for the January topic of "Family". I started with 4 circles of tulle to represent the people in my family. In overlapping the tulle I was thinking about the ways in which we influence each other. Then I thought the colours weren't strong enough so I painted with wax pastels on top of the tulle. I used too much water which made some of the colours run...but I still liked it, so I carried on. I quilted a free motion spiral in the circles and then a zigzag stitch around each circle to hold the edges of the tulle down. I liked how that turned out, thinking that it looked like cogs turning in a (sometimes well oiled!) machine - working together. I continued the zigzag quilting to the outside using a new varigated Rayon thread by Coats, to represent the energy of the family and our hope to influence the outside world in a positive way. I added a few beads because it looked a little plain, and well, I just couldn't help myself! In the centre is one of my favorite finds...a radiating sun medallion, clear heart beads in the centre of the circles and bugle beads in arrows around the outside.

Abstract Quilt

About a year and a half ago I made a mini quilt for the abstract challenge group exploring the topic of "fire". I used a "mind Mapping" technique from Lily Kern's journal class. I wanted to pursue the idea of words as fire, that singe and destroy people, putting negativity and toxins into the universe. This is the design I came up with, with the shape on the left symbolizing a mouth, and the radiating triangles representing verbal fire. I called this quilt "Ready, Aim, Fire".

It has received some attention when it has been displayed in shows and was chosen by the Centre for the Arts for their publicity advertising the quilt show at the gallery in May 2007.

Here is my quilt (bottom right) on their 2007 exhibition flyer.

It was an honour to have my little quilt chosen for this purpose, to be able to promote the concept of quilts as "art", and to have quilts included as part of the gallery exhibitions.

Very exciting!